Trauma informed policy is about restoring Sanctuary from the top down, inside out and outside in as part of healing and preventing future abuse of power. To be trauma-informed means understanding that people have been hurt and will continue to hurt ourselves and each other in the absence of awareness. Trauma-informed care, much like recovery, teaches skills for restoring power and breaking the cycle of hurt as an individual, an organization, a community or a country; which is hopeful since not all of us are ready to change at the same time; meaning mom can go on using while daughter can pack her bags to create a different life. Easier said than done. Imagine if the parent, medical director or president got it? For now, boss can go on bullying and staff can, as they did at the Trauma Center confront it and restore safety through social accountability (like Hollywood) or can experience the restoration of professional integrity by choosing to work elsewhere. The one big caveat: trauma re-enactment is everywhere. We can’t escape humananity by leaving home or getting a different job. The dysfunctional family is a paradigm for parallel process which plays itself out in abuses of power from a wounded parent to an exploitative patriarch since the beginning of time. Just like dysfunctional families, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water; many of his discoveries regarding trauma intervention were and are helpful to trauma survivors. That’s hard to say. The Body Keeps Score was helpful…and the accusations about his behavior are upsetting, but sadly not uncommon for white men in power. At the same time he’s just like the rest of us; not all good or all bad. Like human history; healing towards wholeness is a process. Sanctuary is a blueprint for peace. Bessel, this a bummer. Hope he can make amends.